Noted CIA expert will critique generations of intelligence gathering

Thomas Powers (Courtesy photo)

SOUTH ROYALTON, Vt. - Author and intelligence expert Thomas Powers will present "American Secret Intelligence - Do We Know What We're Doing?" during Vermont Law School's annual Sterry R. Waterman Lecture at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3, in Chase Community Center at VLS. The lecture is free and open to the public and press.

Powers has written about secret intelligence for nearly 40 years. At VLS, he plans to talk about what has -- and hasn't -- changed since he first interviewed "old hands in the intelligence business" for a Rolling Stone article, "The Rise and Fall of Richard Helms," and subsequent book, "The Man Who Kept the Secrets" (Knopf, 1979), about the only CIA director ever convicted of lying to Congress.

"We are pleased to welcome Thomas Powers to Vermont Law School for what is sure to be a gripping discussion of the CIA and other intelligence services," said VLS President and Dean Marc Mihaly. "Personally, I can think of few topics more compelling than secret-keeping at the level of our intelligences services, and Mr. Powers' question of whether anyone knows what our intelligence organizations are really doing is a good one. I encourage the greater community to join VLS for the conversation."

During the lecture, Powers will cover American secret intelligence from the height of the Cold War to present day, including how intelligence gathering has evolved with the advent of computers and other technology.

"The CIA, like other intelligence services, is very good at keeping secrets, but a writer willing to do the homework can still get a firm sense of what they are like -- what they do well, what they consistently get wrong, their operational style, the way they deal with each other and the world," Powers said.

Further, Powers will explore what he calls "the most important" of intelligence issues, that which emerged when Edward Snowden revealed thousands of secret documents from the National Security Agency: the collection of communications intelligence on a vast scale -- "virtually everything people write or say to each other" -- and the function of oversight.

In addition to "The Man Who Kept the Secrets," Powers has published three other books on intelligence subjects: "Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb" (Knopf, 1993); "Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al Qaeda" (New York Review Books, 2002); and "The Military Error" (New York Review Books, 2008). He has written numerous articles on intelligence and other national security subjects for The New York Review of Books and London Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications.